Today Seagate announced their new line of external storage products, the FreeAgent GoFlex series. This line will replace the current FreeAgent brand consumer-focused storage and connectivity products. All the FreeAgent products will be phased out and replaced with new GoFlex models, so it’s a huge shift in Seagate’s retail presence and marketing strategy.

The big news with the GoFlex is that the external drives (both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch) are modular. This allows for an end piece to be removed and then swapped with another interface, so a USB 2.0 drive can become a USB 3.0, eSATA, or Firewire drive in seconds. You’ll just need to buy the accessory piece. It’s a simple operation and quite a convenient one. The ability to swap connections means increased versatility for drives as well as future-proofing today’s USB 2.0 drives for the widespread arrival of USB 3.0. Cable kits will sell for $20, $30, or $40 depending on the interface.

GoFlex Pro with included dock

The GoFlex 2.5-inch comes in both the standard and Pro varieties. The Pro (pictured above) as a ThinkPad Edge-like silver band around the side and uses a 7200 RPM disk. It includes a dock with a built in capacity gauge. The normal GoFlex will be Seagate’s standard, high-volume portable hard drive, replacing the FreeAgent Go. The 3.5-inch option is the GoFlex Desk. It’s sold drive-alone or in a desktop kit in capacities up to 2TB.

In addition to new drives Seagate has replaced the FreeAgent Theater HD and the FreeAgent DockStar. The Theater HD will be replaced with the GoFlex TV HD, which share almost all the features of the older model but will be smaller. The old Theater models will be getting a new firmware to match that of the GoFlex TV HD.

The Pogoplug-based DockStar becomes the GoFlex Net. It noq has two drive docks and the ability to sync the two so they are redundant and you can travel with one while keeping the home for use there or for the sake of security. The GoFlex Net still has the ability to connect USB drives, expand with a USB hub, stream HD video, work with Pogoplug’s iPhone app, allow for easy remote access over the web and more.

GoFlex Desk

Hands-on:

I got some hands-on time with Seagate’s new gear, so see the gallery below for some images.

Right from the started I liked what I saw with the GoFlex products. Seagate added in a great new feature to their external storage devices and that modular connection is a much bigger selling point than a e-paper display or anything else we’ve seen recently (in the external storage space). All the interfaces use the same 2.5-inch disks, so it makes perfect sense to pull off the connection and put in another one. Drives instantly become more useful and get a longer lifespan. My main question was: why did this take so long to come out?

This introduces some possible issues though. First of all is wear-and-tear. The drive’s SATA connection and power connection are being directly used with every swap so buyers will have to be careful, as a broken SATA connection means a useless disk. Seagate seems to have reinforced the area though (it reminded me of WD’s SecureConnect SATA cables). The other issue is that not only does the interface get removed from the disk, so does the circuit board inside. This means an accessory cable has to be more expensive than you might have guessed.

One the design side everything looks nice enough. Simple glossy black plastics were all I saw, but that’s fine for me. Colors will be on the way as these hit retail. The 3.5-inch GoFlex Desk was one of the coolest looking external drives I’ve seen in a long time.

The TV HD got a very incremental upgrade, but it’s smaller and more home theater friendly (less lighting, more conventional shape, easier to insert the drive). The Net saw a bigger upgrade–buyers now get a 2-disk dock and included lifetime Pogoplug service for $99. This is now, almost without question, the best remote access option for consumers. The drive syncing really won me over because now consumers get redundant storage in addition to easy web access.

Finally, a quick note on the naming. The new products are officially called “FreeAgent GoFlex”. This seems to be purely for an easy transition from the existing FreeAgent brand to the new GoFlex one. The FreeAgent brand will be phased out and sooner or later everything will just be GoFlex. Current FreeAgent drives will still be on sale but expect them to disappear as inventories clear out.

Here is a complete list of the hardware being announced today, with some details: